


hope is just another way it hurts

by on_vis_och



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Angst, Basically just Holland suffering for 3k, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, Self-Harm, Suicide mention, sadistic dane twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 09:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_vis_och/pseuds/on_vis_och
Summary: Somewhere between the seventh and eighth life Holland takes for the Danes, he learns how to fight the binding spell and realizes small freedoms only make everything worse.





	hope is just another way it hurts

The knife was heavy in Holland's hand.

He clenched his jaw—one of the only parts of his body he presently had control of—in defiance. To the trembling girl in front of him, it probably looked like righteousness. As far as she knew, he was the willing soldier of the Danes, meting out justice like he believed there could be such a thing as justice in White London, as if justice meant anything when the Danes were still alive and this girl was going to die. He met her gaze and tried to communicate without words his sorrow, his regret. He didn't know what she saw in his eyes, one sickly green, one onyx black. Maybe, like everyone else, she just saw power.

It’s not my fault, he wanted to tell her, but the words stuck in his throat. What would be the point in saying that? He was still going to kill her, wasn't he? The world didn't work on what-could-have-beens.

"Go ahead," Astrid cooed, like she was _indulging_ him. Time slowed to a crawl as Holland’s will scraped futilely at his nerves, fighting the command.

The girl glared up at him.

Holland raised his hand and slid the blade across her throat.

He could see in the set of her features she tried not to cry out. Kindred spirits, they were, Holland and the traitor before him—both fighting so hard when it was hopeless from the beginning. She lost, in the end. They all did. Her mouth opened in agony—but Holland had been too quick, a final, stolen mercy. She slumped forward silently. Astrid hissed in disapproval. The Danes liked it when he went slow, when he drew out the death and made the traitors suffer and beg in their final moments. Was it dignity or shame to die voiceless? Red fell in soft gushes onto the white marble, a mockery of a pulse. Her dying expression—the all-too familiar wild eyes of pure animal desperation—sifted down into Holland’s memory and pinned itself onto his mental list of victims with a sharp flash of pain.

Seven.

She was the seventh life the Danes had ordered him to take. Holland closed his eyes.

"Look at her," Athos commanded, and his lids slid back open unwillingly. "Do you see what we can do together, Antari?" he asked. Holland could hear the clack of his boots on the marble as Athos walked to his side, but Holland did not look up. His gaze was glued to the body, now turning a shade of blue as the traitor’s blood spread out over the floor. “We can finally bring order to this world.” His hand landed heavily on Holland’s shoulder. Holland did not flinch, a worthless victory.

These were the worst days. The Danes could devise a million ways to torture Holland, to make him bleed, only to force him to use his spilled blood to knit himself back together—but pain ended. The executions, though— Holland could never escape the knowledge of what he had done. It was carved into him in a way that the mutilation never would be, not with Astrid or Athos ever-present to command him to use _As Hasasi_. Sometimes, he wanted to scar. Wanted something even a fraction as permanent as the deaths he caused.

“Clean this up,” Astrid said. Holland raised the blade again, this time to his own skin. He drove it in a little deeper than he needed to, relishing in the pain. It was the least he deserved. Power that no longer belonged to him welled to the surface. Athos followed Astrid out of the room, leaving Holland alone with the body. “ _As Anasae_ ,” he whispered, and the blood slicking the marble folded in on itself and disappeared. “ _As Pyrata_.” The body burst into flames and Holland stayed longer than he would have liked. It had been a long time since he had felt so warm.

 

Astrid set a plate before Holland and smiled. “Don’t eat this.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Holland said flatly. The Danes hardly needed a reason to make Holland miserable, but he knew this particular torture came as punishment for his small show of defiance. Astrid left, the metal door clanging as it fell back into place behind her. She didn’t bother with the lock. Didn’t need to—when she led Holland to the cell, she’d ordered him not to leave. Holland glared at her retreating form and did as he was told.

The plate was loaded with fruits in more colors than he’d even thought possible in his world, and Holland hadn’t eaten since yesterday. His stomach growled, a useless complaint.

When Holland lay down on the cell’s hard cot and tried to will himself to sleep, the traitor’s wild eyes swam up behind his own. Holland barely remembered the others. All he had was a number. He told himself if he tallied his kills, maybe someday he could repent for them, but he didn’t quite believe that. Nothing would ever make things right. Still, the number felt like something he should know, so he made it a point to remember. Their faces, though, and their names—gone, if he had ever known them. Maybe it was his way of keeping himself sane. But this latest one—he couldn’t stop reliving the moment the blade had begun to part her skin, the sickening slice as he pulled his hand across. For the first time, he’d been able to fight the binding, even for an instant. He should have savored it as a victory. Instead, he shivered in his cell and hated himself for being too weak to do more.

Before, he could think of his body as a weapon, nothing more than a knife in Astrid or Athos’s hands. Now, he felt like a killer.

Before the Danes, Holland had been a fighter. Most people he’d known were content to look no farther than themselves, to kill and die over the few scraps of magic left in their dying world. Holland wanted more. He didn’t know if White London could ever recover, but he had to try. He had to hope, even when it seemed like trying to fill a leaky bucket. The more he gave to the world, the more seeped through the cracks. But he could never bring himself to stop trying. Holland inched his hand closer to the fruits. Waves of nausea crashed over him as he fought the binding, but he had nothing to lose when he gagged. When his hand was a hairbreadth away, it became too much and he yanked it back to his side, sweat matting his dull hair to his forehead. He breathed, once in and once out, and steadied himself to try again.

He kept fighting and wondered what it would feel like to give up.

 

No one sat on White London's throne for long, Holland told himself. It was only a matter of time before Vortalis's fate would befall the Danes, and he would be free.

He had to hope.

 

Athos pressed a knife into the flesh of Holland’s palm. Holland could have done it himself, but it was never that way with Athos. Astrid was content to sit back and watch Holland hurt himself. Athos wanted to inflict. He leaned in, so close Holland could see the faint black veins tracing through the dun of his eyes, and brought Holland’s hand to his mouth. Athos followed the line of the cut with his lips, pressing his tongue down hard into the exposed tissue. Holland fought the urge to look away.

Athos raised his head, his lips painted red. He pressed a coin into Holland’s ruined palm. “Today, you are going to travel.” The coin felt _off_. It felt like the acrid stench of pollution, a palette of colors muted in mundanity rather than death, the sound of curses in a language both more rough and more royal than Holland’s own. It felt like another world. _Grey London_. Hope was a breeding ground for pain, and Holland knew that if going two worlds away would free him, he’d never be allowed to leave. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a spark of anticipation as Athos laid out the task. He was to retrieve a talisman, a medallion believed to bind magic to the user. Why such an item would be holed up in Grey London, Athos didn’t say, but Holland knew why he was being sent to look for it. Everyone worked the same way, even the Danes. You got desperate enough, and you started reaching.

Athos’ gaze was cool as Holland closed his bloody fingers around the coin. “ _As Travars_ ,” he said. It was the first order from the Danes that Holland carried out willingly.

The _Antari_ disappeared, leaving behind a white-haired king with a smile the color of blood.

 

The air in Grey London was thick with smog, but Holland breathed easier the second he stepped out of a tavern’s wall and onto dirty cobblestones. The binding still held, of course. But it was looser here. His body was his own again, and he relished in the simple freedom of deciding his pace as he started off down the street. It was dawn, and diluted rays of sun were starting to leak out from behind the skyline. Holland tilted his head back and watched the sky, just because he could. The few people that passed him on the street shot curious glances his way, taking in his left eye for a moment before they turned away and kept walking, uninterested. There was no open hunger in their faces, no plotting clearly happening behind their eyes. It was...nice.

A carriage clattered down the street. In Red London, the vehicle would have been spelled for a smoother ride, and Holland couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a horse in his own world. The sheer mundanity of it took him aback. The people here had been cut off from magic long ago, but they’d simply moved on. Made do. Didn’t mutilate themselves trying to bind the last dregs to their bodies, only to have them evaporate from between their desperate fingers. Holland didn’t realize he’d stopped walking until twinge from the rune over his chest forced him to keep moving.

His destination was a few blocks away, an average-looking apartment with a rune drawn incorrectly over the wood of the door. Holland corrected his thought from earlier. _Most_ people had moved on. Holland knocked.

The man that came to the door was scruffy, with dark circles under his eyes. Still, he didn’t look drained like someone from White London would. There was something of his own presence supporting him from within. He stared intently at Holland’s eye, and Holland felt a misplaced surge of hatred.

“Can I help you?” The man didn’t even bother disguising the glee in his voice. Holland pushed past him into the apartment without a word. Normally Holland felt like a puppet, Athos or Astrid yanking on invisible strings around his limbs, making him dance. When he fought it, it was like pressing up against a physical force. Here, the rune was merely a strong suggestion, the control almost indistinguishable from Holland’s own wishes. _I don’t want to do this_ , he reminded himself as he scanned the room.

Crowded bookshelves lined three of the walls. The fourth was taken up by a large desk, papers and herbs stacked haphazardly on the surface. Holland’s gaze landed on a wooden box with five grooves. It felt off in the same way his Grey London coin had, like it didn’t quite belong where it was. Holland thought unbidden of red hair and roses, of the young _Antari_ that had visited back when Vortalis was king and hope hadn’t felt quite so impossible. “Are you a...er, that is, are you from another dimension?” Holland turned back to the man, who was now peering at Holland like a critic would examine a painting. Holland nodded.

“Wow.” A pause. “My name is Nigel Barrett, I’m a connoisseur of magic, as I like to say— ”

How stupid. Nigel had the good fortune to live in a world that had abandoned magic long ago, and here he was making extra trouble for himself seeking it out anyway. Magic causes nothing but pain, Holland wanted to say. “I’m looking for a binding talisman,” he said instead.

Nigel’s hand flew to his collar. “What makes you think I have—er, what’s a binding talisman?” Nigel had clearly never had to lie in his life. For that, Holland envied him.

“Give it to me.” The rune over Holland’s chest warmed with satisfaction. Holland let himself feel for a second, before his own disgust came flooding back, doubled.

“Are you proposing a trade?”

“No,” Holland said, “I am not. You will give it to me, or I will kill you.” Holland did not intend on killing Nigel. That was how the Danes would have done it. Holland intended to use the longer leash he had in Grey London to be as little like them as possible. Nigel lunged for one of the desk’s side drawers and pulled out a pistol. He was shaking. “I won’t let you take it, I _need_ this! This world has no magic on its own, this is the only way I can tap in. Please, we can reach some kind of agreement—”

The words sounded so familiar.

 _Hurt him_ , the binding spell urged. _Make him pay. No one pulls a weapon on my pet without consequences_.

 _No one pulls a weapon on me without consequences._ It was so hard to resist once the thought became his own.

Holland bit his lip, drawing his tired blood. He’d freeze him, take the necklace, and get out before he gave in. “ _As Isera_ —”

Magic came too slowly in this world, sluggish with mundanity. Nigel pulled the trigger.

He’d aimed for Holland’s leg, but the bullet sailed past and buried itself in the bookshelf behind him. Holland swore, and in his panic, his magic finally broke free like water cracking a dam. Ice flowed from his fingertips and coalesced around Nigel’s body. No, not around. Holland realized too late that the ice had gone straight through and Nigel’s cells themselves were freezing. He’d lost control— “ _As Anasae!_ ” he screamed. The ice melted instantly, turning into a lukewarm puddle that seeped across the floor and ruined a dead man’s books. Nigel’s body deflated and fell with a splash, eyes open and unseeing.

 _No_. Holland fell to his knees beside the body. Water soaked into his trousers, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, he was supposed to have been able to choose— It was his fault, wasn't it? He shouldn't have told Nigel he would kill him. He’d put a dangerous idea in his own mind.

Holland felt sick. The binding spell directed him to open Nigel’s shirt, where a simple bone key hung on a chain. It smelled like ash and cold and hunger. Nigel’s flesh was slimy when Holland reached for the talisman. He could feel its power. He’d hoped this would be a dead end, that the talisman would have been as much snake oil as everything else in this _connoisseur's_ apartment. He could never stop hoping, even when it just made disappointment hurt all the more.

Holland stayed on the floor for a long time, clutching the talisman in his trembling hand and tasting the copper of blood in his mouth.

_Eight._

No, that wasn’t quite right, Holland realized. That number was a count of how many he’d killed because the Danes had forced him to. This one had been entirely avoidable.

Holland’s fingers itched for the pistol. He wrapped his hand around the weapon and brought the barrel to his skull. He couldn’t pull the trigger, of course. The Danes had made sure of that. But even if he could, Holland knew he wouldn’t have. He still wanted, stupidly, impossibly, to live.

He dropped the gun and spit blood into his palm. _It’s time to come home_ , the binding spell whispered. Why had he ever bothered resisting? It was so much easier to obey.

“ _As Travars_ ,” Holland said. The ruined room disappeared.

 

Stepping back into White London felt suffocating and comforting at the same time. He hadn’t travelled from the same spot, so he didn’t end up back in the palace, but rather a simple side street. It was noon, but the daylight felt weak, like even the sun was struggling to go on. Holland could feel the binding tightening around him as he made his way to the castle and through the halls to the throne room. Athos and Astrid were waiting.

“Kneel,” Astrid commanded, and Holland had spent the entire trip back wishing to trade in the weight of responsibility for the helplessness of control, but he still fought to remain standing. It was in his nature. He could never push down his pride entirely, not even now when it gained him nothing but pain. His knees hit the floor with a heavy crack. Astrid tilted his chin up with the tip of her boot. “Have you brought us a gift, my pet?”

Holland knew what it would mean for him to give the Danes the key. It would make it even more certain Holland would never, ever be free. His fingers loosened unwillingly, and he held up his arm, a puppet on a string. Athos plucked the talisman out of Holland’s palm and hung it around his neck. His smile was a knife. “Well done.”

The satisfaction in his voice made Holland sick. _Someday they will fall_ , Holland told himself.

He had to hope.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fic I’ve ever actually completed! It’s been a minute since I read ACOL so I hope no one was too terribly OOC. Con-crit is welcome!


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